Jen Bysterveld should soon be able to enjoy a reliable night’s sleep, after a ruling against her noisy neighbour.

Since her neighbour is one of Canada’s largest train yards, repairing a couple dozen locomotives nightly, appealing merely to the city bylaw department would do nothing.

The Canadian Transportation Agency came through this week for Bysterveld and other Inglewood residents. It ordered Canadian Pacific Railway to move its regular locomotive testing and idling after 11 p.m. to at least 400 metres southeast of its normal site.

Bysterveld, who has lived across the street from Alyth yard for 14 years, said it’s “fantastic” news after a two-year fight with the federal regulator.

She’d like the railway to go further, but for now she’s pleased the company is being ordered to be more considerate of residents after ramping up the yard’s activity a few years ago.

“It’s a good first step. We’ll take it,” Bysterveld said.

“The onus has always been on us to prove that they’re making too much noise, that it’s unreasonable. And now we’ll have to monitor closely to make sure they take the ruling seriously.”

It’s not just the high-decibel load testing, which Ald. Gian-Carlo Carra described as “full chug ... a rock concert scream of noise.” The agency also took issue with the steady low-frequency noise and “noise-induced rattles.”

A transportation agency ruling issued this week found that since Canadian Pacific consolidated regional maintenance to Alyth in 2009, increased tests and idling result in “a high annoyance and sleep disturbance to the complainants” and “substantial interference in the ordinary comfort of convenience of living of an average person,” the decision states.

The railway said it already shifted its overnight practices away from the repair building last year, company spokesman Ed Greenberg said.

“We feel we comply, but at the same time we want to ... check to ensure that the distance away from the facility meets the CTA directive,” he said Friday.

But Bysterveld said nights in the past year haven’t sounded different from previous years.

“It’s unpredictable, so it can be at any hour,” said Jen Bysterveld, who launched the complaint on behalf of herself and 10 neighbours.

The order takes effect Aug. 15, although the railway has 30 days to appeal it.

The railway did try to counter transportation agency arguments about worsening noise and other problems the agency cited, but regulators dismissed much of it and questioned the “reliability of the information” the firm offered.

“CP submitted data, and made claims on several occasions which it subsequently retracted or challenged when the agency cited them. These include claims about mitigation measures which were not, in fact, undertaken,” the report stated.

Asked about this critique, Greenberg cited the“complexities” of the agency’s two-year investigation of neighbours’ complaints.

Once the directive takes effect, the transportation agency’s enforcement division can follow up based on complaints and by its own volition, spokeswoman Chantal Laflamme said.

The move doesn’t push the testing fully out of the neighbourhood, but from around 24th Avenue S.E. to 30th, at the south edge of the neighbourhood. That puts it close to the 114-unit Alice Bissett affordable housing complex, and Carra worries the noise issue won’t have completely left Inglewood.

“They’re going to run into the same problems with Alice Bissett Place,” Carra said.

In their decision, transportation agency officials noted that 400 metres from the repair building is currently where the railway does testing when the area near its building is congested, and that it’s sufficient distance away.

Overall, the area alderman applauded the decision, but also noted that CP has “gotten a lot smarter” about its operations since the community complaints began.

Alyth yard has long been the site of locomotive testing, but Inglewood residents successfully argued to the transportation agency that Canadian Pacific’s cacophonous activity has worsened in recent years.

“CP has not filed any evidence to indicate that before implementing its decision to create a major repair facility at the Alyth yard and increase the volume of its repair operations, CP gave any consideration to the impact this would have on the community,” the decision says.

Greenberg said the CTA decision recognizes the need for Alyth yard and Inglewood homes to coexist.

“And we’re talking about a residential area situated right up against an industrial district that has been there for many years, since the early days of Calgary.”

jmarkusoff@calgaryherald.com

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